I'm a little unclear on how image searches are tracked. When it shows up on the Visitor Paths list, does that just mean that a user clicked on an image from your site from the list of images on a google search, or does it mean that they also clicked to visit your page after viewing the image?

I'm a little unclear on how image searches are tracked. When it shows up on the Visitor Paths list, does that just mean that a user clicked on an image from your site from the list of images on a google search, or does it mean that they also clicked to visit your page after viewing the image?

You have never done an image search and clicked on an image in the Google result page? Try it and you will see what happens.
Google opens a page with 2 frames, the small top frame shows the search and on the big bottom frame the page where the image is embedded.
So the search gives also the site/page, that's why Statcounter can register the page load.

That url is broken and leads only to the Google image search page.
If that is all you have in your stats, I guess Google is hiding the result page.
And that may be (as my guess) the same reason they hide other referrer results from searches, especially if the user is logged in to Google+

You have never done an image search and clicked on an image in the Google result page? Try it and you will see what happens.
Google opens a page with 2 frames, the small top frame shows the search and on the big bottom frame the page where the image is embedded.
So the search gives also the site/page, that's why Statcounter can register the page load.

That's what I meant. What I'm asking is does it register from that two frame view, or only when a user clicks the backmost frame to visit your site?

Quote:

That url is broken and leads only to the Google image search page.
If that is all you have in your stats, I guess Google is hiding the result page.
And that may be (as my guess) the same reason they hide other referrer results from searches, especially if the user is logged in to Google+

I shortened it since it was a long url, and it was just meant as an example. My guess is that it comes from when you click the back frame in an image search (ie not the image, but the web page behind it). Is that the case?

That's what I meant. What I'm asking is does it register from that two frame view, or only when a user clicks the backmost frame to visit your site?

When somebody do a image search, they click on the image on the Google result page and then the Google frameset is loaded.
Since the page with the counter code is shown as framed within the frameset, Statcounter register it as a page load (hit) on the page.

It's no different than any other site built with a frameset, showing individual pages in the frames. The page(s) with counter code is loaded and registered.